Lesbian and gay young people twice as likely to smoke and drink alcohol

30 August 2013

Young
people who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual are twice as likely to have
smoked than their heterosexual peers, according to new research published in BMJ Open. Lesbian and gay young people
were also more likely to drink alcohol frequently and more hazardously.

The
interdisciplinary research team comprised researchers from five UK Universities
(UCL, University of Cambridge, London Metropolitan University, De Montfort
University Leicester and Brunel University), a doctor working in General
Practice and a consultant from Public Health England.

The
researchers looked at data from over 7,600 participants collected from the
Longitudinal Study of Young People in England. This representative sample of
school pupils entered the study at age 13/14 and were followed for five years.
All the participants were asked about their cigarette smoking and alcohol use.
At age 18/19, they were asked about their sexual identity. This is the first UK
study in which representative data has been available. Most previous research
in this area has come from the US.

Young
people who identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual (3.5% of the sample) were
around twice as likely as heterosexuals to have smoked during the follow-up.

Gay or
lesbian participants were more likely to say that they drank alcohol frequently
(more than weekly), and report hazardous alcohol drinking patterns (frequent
intoxication).

From a public health perspective, we need to understand why young gay, lesbian and bisexual people are more likely to engage in risky health behaviours than their heterosexual peers.

Dr Gareth Hagger-Johnson, UCL Epidemiology & Public Health

Bisexual
participants were more likely to have smoked but had similar alcohol use
patterns to their heterosexual peers.

Lead
researcher Dr Gareth Hagger-Johnson, from the UCL Department of Epidemiology
and Public Health, said: “Our research shows that despite recent social change,
young people today who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual are twice as likely
to have smoked as their heterosexual peers. Gay and lesbian young people also
appear to have more frequent and more hazardous alcohol drinking patterns than
heterosexuals. Smoking and drinking alcohol frequently and hazardously can lead
to chronic disease in later life, and so we should be worried about these
health inequalities in this minority group and the longer term consequences
they may face.

“From a public health
perspective, we need to understand why young gay, lesbian and bisexual people
are more likely to engage in risky health behaviours than their heterosexual
peers,” continued Dr Hagger-Johnson. “This will need to involve longitudinal
research, following a large sample of lesbian, gay and bisexual young people
over time. We are concerned that ‘minority stress’, resulting from homophobia
and heterosexism, might lead people to self-medicate symptoms of anxiety and
depression with cigarettes and alcohol.”